Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she's returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld... this time forever.

She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, the one person she loves more than anything. But there's a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath, has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back- this time as his queen.

As Nikki's time grows short and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she's forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's...

This turned out to be a bit different than expected, but not in a bad way. After being so incredibly disappointed with Abandon [review], I was a bit hesitant about trying another retelling of Persephone, which as it turned out, was closer to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Throughout the story, I felt so bad for Nikki. She was in so much pain knowing that seeing the people she loved was only temporary, for soon she would be taken back to the Everneath. It felt like she was this hollow shell of a person who so desperately just wanted to be with those that she loved, but knew that there was nothing she could to change it. Nikki desperately wanted to be with Jack, her former boyfriend, but didn't want to put him through the pain of losing her again. Unfortunately, there is Cole, who is always lingering over her like an ominous dark cloud.

Now, don't be mistaken and think this is another YA novel focused on some sappy love triangle -- it is not. I know Jenny will be disappointed, but I really did like Jack and totally rooted for him over Cole. I couldn't imagine loving someone and then the person disappearing and having no idea what happened to them other than rumors. don't get me wrong, I did kind of like Cole and had a soft spot in my heart for him. I spent most of the book having a strong distrust for him. I know he cared about Nikki but there was something I couldn't quite put my finger on with him.

I really thought that Everneath picked up when she started trying to dig deeper into things, to find out what she wasn't being told. I'm not going into too much here because I don't want to give too much away.

One thing I was not expecting though was to be brought to tears. That is exactly what it ended up doing. I'm still here, even writing this, thinking about it and I'm just so in shock. It was the kind of tears that are caused by not just pain, but a mixture of that and feeling so overwhelmed by that kind of love and dedication to a person.

So, with all of that said, I definitely enjoyed Everneath and the emotions it evoked, even if they weren't always happy ones. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys mythology retellings or just stories of love. I don't know how well I'm going to hold out waiting for the next book.

5
comments:

Glad to hear that the love triangle isn't featured as prominently as I first thought it might be. A friend sent me her spare copy of this book, so I'm hoping to get around to reading it soon! I love the Orpheus/Eurydice story (even better than Persephone's tale), so I'm curious to see the parallels between it and Everneath!

Everneath was a book that I read at first at was like 'This was good', and then I realized that days later I was still thinking about it. The characters in Everneath definitely portray emotion extremely well - Nikki and Jack were breaking my heart. Hubby looked over and asked me 'What's wrong?' because I just had this super-sad look on my face the entire time I was reading their scenes.

I have to agree that this is portrayed frequently as Persephone/Hades but is definitely more of the Orpheus/Eurydice tale at the moment. Maybe Cole will play a 'larger' role in the future stories?